Milosevic Crisis Mounting

June 22, 2001|By Carlotta Gall The New York Times

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Opposition from its Montenegrin partners forced the Yugoslav government on Thursday to withdraw a bill regulating cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal, a move that may hasten the extradition of former President Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic and four of his allies were indicted by the tribunal in The Hague in May 1999 on charges related to crimes committed by Serbian security forces during the war over Kosovo.

The failure to pass the law may force the new authorities in Belgrade, who came to power after a popular revolt ousted Milosevic in October, to send him or another prominent indicted war criminal to The Hague in order to obtain badly needed foreign aid when major donors meet next week.

The United States conditioned its participation in the donors' conference in Brussels on June 29 on cooperation with The Hague, and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica promised Washington on a visit last month that the law on cooperating with The Hague would go through.

There is a sense of crisis within the leadership in Belgrade now that it is clear that the law will not pass parliament. The new leaders are facing growing discontent at home as economic pressures build up, and had hoped to raise $1 billion at the conference, a target that seems impossible without U.S. participation.

Members of the ruling alliance that ousted Milosevic eight months ago were meeting to decide what to do. Some ministers are calling for urgent action, with or without the law, to prove the government's determination to cooperate with the Hague. The city is rife with rumors about an impending extradition of Milosevic, and reports in Belgrade media in recent weeks have seemed intended to prime Serbs, who once supported him and tolerated or endured his rule for 13 years, to accept that he is an accused war criminal.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is insisting on decisive action. "We cannot stall any longer. We have to take decisive measures within the next week," he said.

"The nervousness in the government is unbelievable, the budget is quite empty," Bratislav Grubacic, editor of the VIP news agency in Belgrade, said in an interview. "They are going to have to do something," he said.

Kostunica had insisted on the need for the law to regularize cooperation, despite arguments from the tribunal and other Serbian leaders that it was unnecessary.

The authorities now have two options. Either the Yugoslav government can pass a decree or adopt a document recognizing the constitution of the Hague tribunal or it could decide to implement cooperation automatically on the grounds that the tribunal is a U.N. body and that Yugoslavia, as a member of the United Nations, is bound to cooperate with it.